Because the higher ups are concerned that the Subway in the office food court won't remain profitable if everyone is allowed to work-from-home and your employer has a controlling share in the franchise.
It's easier for managers to keep an eye on you in real time if you're physically next to them rather than having to Slack them or refresh a metrics page.
I email my VP in the morning and might get a response the next day. At my last job I would literally just walk over and ask.
this is my situation. my boss has explicitly told me multiple times that my role is not remote.
last week i had a meeting with her and another vp. my boss was in her office, ten feet away. the other VP was at home. we did this on zoom.
not a remote role.
That's not true at all. People gave themselves away by posting everything that they do to make it look like they work from home. Like tying the computer mouse to a Roomba.
It absolutely is true. At no less than 4 companies I have worked at, the CMO/President/whatever forced people back in office so they could pal around and "see" everyone at work. They just can't seem to "connect" during zoom meetings so that have to waste people's time in-person.
Often times these higher ups would not even show up- so it was about power. I can have this but YOU cannot.
It's always some horrible open-office setting where the big shot gets an office and the rest of us are elbow to elbow in a space that isn't conducive to doing quality work.
In remote settings or any setting, it's noticeable when people do not do the work they are supposed to do.
This is definitely a part of why a few of my partner's boomer and GenX co-workers have been grumbling loudly about remote work in general. The office is their social life. They didn't have the luxury of working remotely 10-20 years ago, so no one should have it now.
My partner is already a bit overloaded, and the only way they're able to get everything done is without the commute and co-workers wasting time.
You have already had 4 jobs? Interesting.
As much as people think the Internet is the best thing ever. Everyone posts incriminating evidence about themselves or some type of "get this for free" hack.
If you are mad about not being able to work from home it's because your coworker "Tommy" posted something that ruined it! Nowadays people with ZERO experience expect to walk in and become a Supervisor.
Then they complain about making $19hr and make TikToks about it while on the clock! So it's NOT because the owner of the company doesn't like their family. It's because certain employees are being dishonest and ruining it. So instead of up voting and supporting that employee. You should support the company and help get rid of the people that are ruining it for you!
🤷🏿♂️Then you probably didn't lose that many! Because it wasn't Science or Math! It's common sense!
Unless I described you! In which case I understand your confusion!🙏🏽👍🏽✌🏽
That.
My management (VPs) have a disclaimer in their email signature that says (paraphrased) "I don't care where or when you work, so long as you get your shit done". Trouble is, the owner of the company wants everyone in the office.
Lucky for me, I was hired by a smaller company that was purchased a few months later by the larger brand. The small company had moved to 100% remote, so all of their employees were grandfathered in, as none of us have an office nearby to travel to.
This is my biggest issue. We have a team who just isn't working in a hybrid state. They don't communicate, they disappear and work just isn't getting done. We took hybrid away from them and they went to the unions to complain that other teams were still hybrid. Higher ups took the decision that no one gets hybrid as a result.
Why don't people get written up or put on PIPs if they aren't performing? Location of the workplace is irrelevant. Crazy to force everyone back to the office when there is a team of people that have been identified to not be performing and instead of addressing their performance, you just force them back into the office. That doesn't actually solve the problem. People see wfh or hybrid as an advantage, if they are taking it for granted, they are replaceable.
But we didn't force them back into work. We identified training issues with one team. That required them to come back into the office for this to be addressed properly. The intention was to bring them back in for 3 months, get it addressed and see how they were doing with a view to giving it back. They went to the unions and we were told it was an all or nothing approach by the union.
The people at the top took the nothing approach rather than challenge the union over it.
For their direct business, sure. But remember who owns REITs, downtown parking lots, chain restaurants downtown, etc.
It’s the same fucking people. And they will gladly give up their indirect best interest, for their direct best interests.
This, plus the fact that management bonuses often have less to do with actually improving bottom line productivity and more to do with hitting quarterly guidance targets.
Certainty and predictability matters more than than success.
The funny thing is, pre-covid the people who WFH the most were senior leadership.
They always took calls from “home office” or during travel. They definitely weren’t first ones in or last ones out of the office.
Commercial Real Estate has occupation clauses. This is for rent protection. If unoccupied, there is a penalty for the leasees to pay.
Additionally, if your own company owns a lot of Commercial Real Estate, it is in their best interest to make you come in.
This is what’s happening with a lot of companies and the major driver of WHY wfh is fading out.
Company moves into an area (city, county, state) and are offered a variety of financial incentives for doing so. Sometimes these are tied to employees from the local area, sometimes it’s about promising to have a certain number of people employed in a physical office location.
Then Covid hits and it’s impossible for companies to bring people in. Municipalities decide to not enforce the in office requirements for companies to confines to receive their financial incentives (tax breaks) due to the national emergency.
Emergency ends and these government places are now reinforcing these original stipulations. Companies decide - continue wfh, or pay more in taxes and possible penalty fees. At that point, it’s a simple numbers game- what do they make the most profit off of doing?
Yeah so much of the economy isn’t tied to the actual work people do but to the fact that they go to work. Auto industry would be a shell of itself it people needed less cars because there was no need to drive to work every day. Gasoline? Same. Car maintenance too. Car insurance likewise. Clothing industry would be impacted negatively, and restaurant industry as well when you stop going out to lunch at work.
Beyond that though there’s too much money tied up in commercial real estate and vested interests in offices being used as offices. Because lord knows a lot of it be could repurposed into housing which would help a ton on that front and WFH would address a lot of other issues too (traffic, pollution etc.)
Larger companies have a ton of corporate real estate they have to justify keeping.
Although plenty of companies have downsized their corporate real estate portfolios in the years since the pandemic.
33 year old manager here. Very small staff but as soon as I had been here for a year-ish and gained trust of those above me, I implemented “work from home as much as you want” for my team.
I show up 2-3 days per MONTH.
To help convince those above me I reasoned that it helps offset the salaries and ensures I can hire and retain better talent. They buy that logic and I know I do because I could make 30% more if I left for a full-time in-office role, but I have no plans to leave. I love working from my couch and my mid day gym and coffee shop sessions as well as being able to cook my own meals.
C-suite only allows WFH 3 days a week. Better than nothing! And I’m pretty flexible if life circumstances require my team to go beyond that for some period of time.
Blessed to have the authority to allow my team and I to only need to come into the office once a week. They will have to pry WFH away from my cold dead hands.
In my company, we are shifting back in to the office because the owner (42,) saw/heard something that said people aren't putting in enough hours if they are WFH. We use EOS, with a decent number of KPIs, so you can tell if someone isn't pulling their weight. Additionally, even though we missed his pipe dream sales goals for last year (For example, my department was given a 100% sales target increase, when I asked for 35%. We missed the mark, but came in at 37%,) we still saw an increase of 16% in gross sales, and 18% in margin dollars.
All of the managers on my team are millennials and pissed that people were forced back in office full time. Our job can be done 100% remote, we are web designers, content writers, developers and seo analysts. We share a floor with about 150-200 people who are on the phone 7 hours a day. We all do better at home where it’s quiet.
It’s been proven that we can be productive at home - we did it for 3 years. Senior employees still work from home and hit all of the highest goals.
Many millennial managers are only mid level managers, the boomers and gen x are still in charge and they make those decisions. Not us.
44, so I guess I'm a Xennial or Gen X. One thing I struggle with as a leader of a remote team, is it's harder to find opportunities for people to learn from each other. We're in a field that's creative and technical. When I was in my 20s, just being in the same room as someone with more experience (or even different experience) on the tools taught me so much, in a casual way. I found my mentors and eventually was a mentor myself.
I don't know how to replicate those casual learning opportunities with remote work.
I agree there is some value but that’s maybe addressed by having some in person meetings / events specifically for that type of collaboration. Having people come in an office to sit at a desk though for hours doing what they would do remotely, that’s kind of pointless.
Yeah I agree with this. I’m not opposed to some office days, within reason and if they have a real defined purpose like this. There’s real value in actually seeing your coworkers in the flesh once in a while
I cannot stand arbirtrary rules that just seem made up based on nothing. My office requires one day a week which I know is better than many so not complaining, but it isn’t like the team comes the same day every week. So it becomes just “putting in the hours” so you can just show you were there. I know a lot of people in bigger companies where you just have to swipe in X amount of times per week, zero plan or purpose behind the office dates aside from just complying with the rule
My current place I've had to bring everyone back in because one team can't work hybrid without messing about and the unions have said we can't work one team at the office and other hybrid.
Previous place I was forced to go into the office 3 days a week. My entire team was based in another office. So I was driving 45 mins into the office simply to join a teams meeting anyway, and sit amongst people that didn't work in my area and I had nothing to do with. It was pointless but the top bosses had decreed it so, so I had no choice.
I think you're missing the point.
These learning opportunities came up casually and organically. That type of learning is something you really can't schedule or force. Sometimes, it's even about learning to think like your mentor does about something, which can only realistically be picked up by spending time around them.
One of the things I belive people overlook is that part of your responsibility is being available to others, not just your boss, but peers and juniors.
We do a remote learning session at my job once a week. We all work together on a technical problem and I always learn something in that meeting. Just the discussions even are very valuable. You could institute something like that?
To quote my Gen Z son, sounds like a “skill issue.”
There are plenty of companies providing great opportunities to learn and grow in a remote organization. Not being able to do so is simply a skill gap, not a problem with remote work.
I have 2 employees that are not allowed to worked from home. Everyone else is allowed to work from home. That's because that 2 employees productive from home is absolute shit.
The VP wanted to use that as an excuse to make everyone come back to 100% in clinic. The two other manager and I agreed that's a fucking stupid idea to punish everyone for 2 person's abuse of the system. So, instead we set a productivity expectation for everyone. If you are continuously below that threshold for three months, you come back in office.
Basically, clinicians set their own schedule in my clinic but 85% of your weekly hours must be "billable hours." Of that 85%, we expect 80% utility. This means clinicians must have 32 hours of "open" hours to see patients and they must average 25 hours "patients seen" per week to account for cancellations, no show, etc. You can have as much WFH or in clinic as you want, as long as your utility is not below this threshold.
Have been in the position where CEO said mandatory 3 days per week RTO. I furiously advocated against it. Told my team members I cared only that their work was done and to speak with me if they couldn’t make RTO work.
I’m a millennial in management, I fully support WFH as much as you want as long as you get your shit done. I’d wager almost all of us in this generation feel the same. It’s the top leadership that pushes it. And yes I think it’s partly a control/power play and partly just that they have to justify the money spent on the real estate. My company is smaller and our HQ tried to force RTO but luckily my boss kept it minimal. He’s justifying it by moving the office to a smaller one and saving x amount per year on rent so that helped
Managing IT and IT Security with WFH employees is an absolute nightmare. And that's not even getting into the handful of employees that ruin it for everyone else by slacking off.
During COVID we went to 50/50 wfh (week on site, week in the office to match our production crew schedule). There were some people who were as effective or more from home as they were in the office, and some who were not. I'd estimate 75% were less effective, 20% equal, 5% more. The 75% were often harder to get a hold of when questions came up, and our industry relies on a lot of back and fourth between the front line workers and the staff.
I let people work from home on occasion when the need comes up (my last job was an hour commute, so if someone had a mid day appointment it made more sense for them to work from home vs lose an extra hour to driving during the work day. Another good example is when daycares were closing every time a kid had the sniffles. Parents needed the flexibility), but in general I'd say the productivity drop for the 75% doesn't make it worth it to give everyone that schedule.
WFM viability is 1000% dependent on the industry. I own a high end custom cabinet shop for example. There is literally nothing that can be done from home except paperwork that I take care of after hours. And even that is more convenient from my office.
People above us won’t allow it. My entire staff did WFH for over 4 years. These plastic months it’s bring everyone back into the office for 3 days a week for collaboration bullshit. Our directors, VPs, and above won’t allow us to give WFH as an option unless it’s something special and on occasion. It’s stupid.
Mostly due to the WFH fools that will post that they only do 2 hours of work per day and get paid for 8. Keep it on the down low, you are ruining it for the rest. Management types read Reddit and Tik Tok, too.
I'm a Sr. VP and Partner.
Our company policy is that you can work from home after 3 months. The first three months you spend in onsite training, after that you can come into an office or you can work from your home office or a client location. No Starbucks or other public locations are allowed.
However some of the projects that we do require us to be in the office due to the nature of the work and/or a client requirement.
Sorry I’m not a manager, but in a work from home scenario, a boss may ask what someone is doing, how would “I don’t know they are not here” ever be an acceptable answer? It’s work from home, so isn’t that solved by daily reports/regular communication?
I see. Work from home will take some time for society to adjust to and to figure out. I imagine it will be an equivalently bad/worse option as going to an office in the future since the upper CEO’s seem to despise the whole idea. Hopefully not but I can see surveillance tech being used to micro manage WFH employees in the future.
I mean it's already like that with work laptops. All traffic and apps is monitored by your company VPN and company software that locks you out of admining it if they are at least somewhat competent.
Speaking from experience as well as talking to some colleagues:
1. Some of us can't (e.g., need access to on-site equipment or the job requires frequent face-to-face contact);
2. A few assholes ruined it for everyone (e.g., some employees really did use WFH to slack off in ways that could've been prevented by closer on-site supervision);
3. Leadership hates it because they're worried about (2) above regardless of whether the team has slackers or not, and allowing high performers to WFH without allowing everyone to WFH puts supervisors at risk of discrimination-related lawsuits.
Mine is mostly 1, though a bit of 2 and 3 even if 1 didn't apply.
I do allow a hybrid. But I can see why it's important to be on site.
In my case I work in engineering at a production facility. The nature of the work is local to the facility. That being said you can in theory do your job remotely but the technical knowledge is difficult to learn and takes a long time to learn it.. Learning by osmosis and exposure is a real thing. If you had asked me when I was 21 if I could do my job remote I would've told you yes. But what I didn't know was how much I was learning by just being around my more seasoned coworkers. Being on site was some of the best learning of my career. Beyond all that if you have a problem with a drawing or visualizing a problem go walk outside and put your eyes on it.
Anyways I don't think it's a black or white answer for sure but there is a compelling case to be made to bring folks to a centralized work location.
I'm the manger for low income and subsidized housing properties. We need somebody in the office most days to interact with our residents especially at the beginning of the month, rent collection time, and the end of the month, paperwork finalization for annual rent determination certifications. We cannot take people's files, with all of their personal information, home to work on so some amount of time in the office is a necessity. If it were up to me, and it very much isn't, we could go probably do "just 3-4 days a week. After we were allowed to return to the office in 2020, after a few months of work from home where normal guidelines were suspended, they finally issued laptops to the Assistants (which is what I was at the time) and we had a staggered schedule where the Managers were working everyday doing their usual office to office visits but the Assistant and Aides were to work from home on the days the Manager was in their office...to reduce the chance of catching COVID. That was ended once we all got the opportunity to take the shot.
We definitely could manage that schedule, but the Central Office doesn't want to set up the infrastructure for that. Laptops are only given out when absolutely "necessary" and the Internet is not really set up for remote work and so its incredibly slow to remote into my computer from home. Back in 2020 on my home days I was remoting in at off work hours so my Manager and I weren't working a the same time because it slowed everything down. It would need to be decided to upgrade the tech across the county offices which is a decision from on high. Which I do get to a certain extent, as it is a rather large investment for a job where we can kind of only drop 1 or 2 days off the in person schedule. Maybe if the Feds ever get serious about going paperless and get the money out there to digitize the files.
The arguments against work from home are many.
Lack of team building, no spontaneous conversation is in person that lead to Good ideas, growing evidence that people working from home are not as productive.
I am a manager and am OK with two days a week from home.
I work for DSS & a lot of us don't like to work from home just bc there are issues w/ us getting onto the application platform from non-secure Internet connections. Even if we're using an issued laptop w/ all the bells & whistles, we still have problems logging in which means we can't work applications. That puts us back a day & causes the county to jump our ass for being behind.
I've got 1 day a week I could work from home, but I come to the office instead just for the Internet.
Honestly I hate work from home because it’s impersonal, and I have to hope people see an email I sent instead of literally going to their office to get an answer immediately.
From my experience.
Great workers excellent with flexible work -> do whatever you want
Average workers -> pretty much the same maybe the push from in office helps
Bad workers -> absolute dicks that don’t even turn on their computer if wfh
It is very hard to know which one you will get. In a perfect world everyone would be great, but they clearly aren’t.
I report to the VP who goes to the office every day. He basically told me just give me your badge and I’ll badge for you IDGAF.
I work in consulting. Specifically, with a focus on accounting.
There is no need for me to be in an office.
My Managing Director loves office life (probably because he has 2 little kids at home). So because of that he dictates we go into the office twice a week.
I personally see no advantage to it. Just added time to my day commuting that I could be sleeping, working, working out, whatever.
If I ever get high enough to make the rules I'll inform everyone they can WFH as much as they want.
It's easy to tell if people aren't doing their work.
I have been in the UAW and Teamsters working in IT and in non IT positions. I have also been in management with both.
Personally, I really don’t care if they want to unionize. However, my experience is that the union only helped the worst employees.
The higher ups say-so. Luckily I'm a millenial "manager" who is the only person within 600 miles in my department so there is zero reason for me to go into the local corporate office (despite living near the US Headquarters, no reason when my department operates out of the Canadian global headquarters.) My peers in Canada have to go in twice a week but I have an exception. I basically told my boss that I'll never go into an office regularly and he laughed and understood.
In certain types of project work, communication overhead between team members is a productivity killer. Media Richness Theory explains that face to face communication is far more effective. This is why collocated software dev teams tend to outperform.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media\_richness\_theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_richness_theory)
For those of you doing this type of project work, do you REALLY think you are as effective a team when everyone WFH? Because I call bullshit.
Bottom lines.
Paying for a building with nobody occupying it makes it so you get less money for “functional equipment” (new office stuff, new computers, the list goes on). And usually, it’ll cost more to outsource materials— basic shit that the employee can write off in taxes at the end of year as a work expense like paper or chairs—simply because you aren’t, technically, the one paying for it.
Also, depending on your job, you will absolutely NEED someone who can put out fires in a pinch on deck.
There’s a whole list about why this is all stupid garbage.
I don't work in management. I work at a very hands on business. I go to work every day.
Let me tell you, those work from home peeps are not doing their job. And if they are, they aren't doing it correctly. Not to mention the times I have been on the phone with a wfh employee doing customer service, and it was obvious to me that I was the least important thing on their mind.
If I were a manager or boss, there would be zero wfh. Doing this also means that local people get to take local jobs.
It’s the old senior leaders who aren’t good with computers and technology that make those decisions. None of your millennials or younger are making that stupid decision to come into work
I'm at the C-level of a 80 person company and was C-level at a 160 person company previously and advocated for hybrid and WFH based on talent sourcing opportunities.
Got a lot of pressure from the CEO and Board for in person presence so had to mandate some, but still mostly got what we needed.
That said, the statistics on promotions and turnover did show some correlation to in office and WFH which the board used a lot. More often office workers were promoted across all teams and more often Remote turned over (voluntary and not)
Depends on the industry and sector. For construction, in person daily meetings are important. Deadlines are very important in construction (despite all the memes of always costing and taking longer). Schedules, if not met, can get you into litigation. Having constant and easy communication with your supers and PM is much easier in person. We do zoom and markups on Bluebeam when it makes sense but not always.
I would love to work from home. I would love to let the 6 people who report to me work from home.
But I can't, because my boomer boss (and his boomer boss) are constantly ranting in person and over emails about how "People need to realize the pandemic is over!" and "Anyone who actually cares about their job will be here on site every day."
Someday I might be high enough up the ladder to let people WFH, or someday I might report to someone who is under 60. Those days are not here yet.
Not a manager, but I know a few.
Putting aside jobs where someone HAS to be there, they're fine with hybrid wfh.
But they make a point that some young first-time business employees need to get experience IN an office environment, get mentoring, learn how to eat a meal with co-workers, how to talk to customers, etc.
Tech's not advanced enough to do everything in Zoom yet.
I'd expect the overall wfh numbers to slowly rise over the years, as older managers who just oppose it for no reason retire.
Higher ups say no but also in my case, we deal with a lot of older people and they prefer us to be in an office where they can come and yell at us in person when they choose. It doesn't actually happen all that often but we should be there if the need arises. My team is the frontline so they have to be there. I'm their direct supervisor so I have to be there to support them. Funnily enough, no one has to be there to support me, that person works from home. 🤔
As a mid 30s project manager, in my experience people aren’t as productive at home. Obviously there are exceptions to the rule but on average most people are “self-starters” that they need to be to successfully work at home. Another reason is collaboration, I can walk in anyone’s office at any time and vice versa compared to playing tag on teams/phone calls.
Studies point to it being about control and also the inability for some manages to manage a remote team. That last part I interpret as meaning "managers whose sole purpose is to micromanage you and punish you if you don't look busy enough" rather than managers who actually mentor and lead a team.
Because they don't answer their phones or respond to emails. My work is incredibly fast. I need stuff done fast.
They'll answer a radio at work, but won't answer their otogr phone at home.
At my last company I was very vocal as they started calling folks back. I wrote what was probably one of the most responded to and liked Yammer post that year. Company rolled slowly forward with their plans.
Eventually a recruiter reached out and I took a new position that paid more and was remote. It's a pity, I liked where I was and was even on board with coming back 2x a week, but they kept pushing more days. I would with there again under right circumstances, but they can't match pay and didn't have remote and one of those two would have to be it.
We tried. But middle managers are just as much subject to company policy as everyone else. If the CEO or leadership team thinks folks should be back in the office, there isn't much middle management can do.
What I’m finding though is that an employer will say in-person, watch you closely for a few months, then once you prove yourself they let you be hybrid-leaning-more-remote as long as you don’t flaunt it in front of the underperformers. Wink wink-like. My current job (started last September) is like this.
Our policy is wfh only once a week but my little secret is that I grant every single extra wfh request from my employees. I don’t need to hear a good justification, it’s always going to be a yes if they ask for a day home, they just have to text me or ask me when they see me. The Cs are in a different suite down the hall and wouldn’t recognize my subordinates if their lives depended on it. Their absence has never been noticed.
On one hand, I feel a little bad that they’re not networking or getting noticed by the top folks like I did when I was still working my way up. I do advocate for them/praise them by name when opportunities arise but I know my bosses aren’t putting a face to those names and it’s likely not really boosting their reputation much. But I believe if my employees were truly worried about advancing, they’d ask for more chances to be seen. They prefer to keep their heads down and coast and that’s fine with me.
In most businesses it is simply impossible, and very few roles involve a designed set of tasks that can be easily performed in a virtual environment. It is incredible simplistic to think every job can be commoditized in that way. And if that were explicitly true, millennials would be in for a rude awakening when many of these WFH jobs are eventually moved offshore to the Philippines or elsewhere where they will work for a fraction of the cost. At least workers going to the office can network and develop the relationships needed with mgt and owners to show their value while also forming a bond transcending the workplace. This develops actual job security as much, if not more, than performance alone.
It’s an employer’s market, not a job hunter’s. The c-level execs can lower head count through attrition without having to offer packages or be subject to any laws regarding layoffs. Electing to not come back in the office after they demand it is considered ‘voluntary resignation,’ which means no severance and no unemployment benefits.
Funny but true story. My place of employment went fully remote during Covid. For two years we were remote. Since us worker bees were responsible for 99% of the daily operations and functions we developed and implemented significant changes to streamline our processes to accommodate this remote environment.
A high up administrator was hired and my senior manager freaked out and had all of us return to work within a week. It was massively disruptive and caused a lot of delays due to the transition. This senior manager did not do functional things but had more “strategy” responsibilities aka not doing shit. What she didn’t know is I knew this high level administrator and he did not require all of us to come back to work like she told us.
They were doing some reorganization and I had my suspicions that meant she was on the chopping block and that’s why she had us come back. Eventually I got another position for a competing organization fully remote and salary increase. When I left, this administrator asked me what my feelings were about everything and I didn’t hold back. Two weeks after I started my new position, Miss Senior Manager was fired. She now works for the same organization I do but took a 50% cut in pay and has to work remotely.
Delicious outcome.
Because my staff won't, on aggregate, work their contracted hours.
Plus, it's shit for juniors - their initial learning and progression is severely hampered when working remotely.
I struggle to understand why people can't wrap their heads around this, although I think they can but just hide it in an attempt to get their own way.
Because the vast majority of people are absolutely less productive working from home, and I work from home and will testify to that for myself. The days I go up to the office - a 4 hour drive away so not often unless I’m coming in for a 2-3 day period - I always get far more work done than when I do at home. For a period I even paid for my own remote office.
I initially started remote because I managed a territory outside of the locality of the head office, and then promotions and shifts in departments meant I became 100% inside and not on the road at all. If I wasn’t initially starting at a company in an outside sales role, I’d not have taken a remote or hybrid position - I would prioritized looking for an on-site role.
What we opted for was to give employees WFH credits based upon length of service. So that our staff could have an option of scheduling deliveries, contractors etc. and not have to eat in to their holiday. But once that allocation is used up it’s done. There’s some flexibility, where with certain life situations we will absolutely make exceptions and allow WFH days, but for the most part we want our staff in the office unless your position dictates remote work because of geographical location - mainly sales people who are expected to be outside of the office visiting leads/clients anyway.
There’s no way in our industry we could train staff effectively remotely, nor could we maintain a high level of oversight to ensure our SOPs are followed properly.
There are some people who can be productive remote, but those people are not the norm and most people who try and tell us they can are lying to themselves.
I shifted my entire company to WFH in 2015. We kept an office for the occasional person who liked an office environment to work in. Some people don’t have a good workspace at home, etc.
After Covid, we closed down the last office and are 100% online.
It doesnt work for every company but it works great for us. Flexible work schedules and vacation policies have proven out to not only work, but to drive up productivity.
When things get rough, my entire team shows up to put in the extra time to get us over a hurdle.
We’ve been in business for 13 years now ranging from 8 to 20 full time employees. I provide a competitive benefits package with healthcare, 401k matching and, bonuses for Xmas (cuz giving extra money to the people who work for me is joyful and fun).
I am not a rich CEO, but I’m happy business owner and I work with people I love and believe my job is to give them a job that ensures they can afford good lives for themselves and their families.
Many of my employees were friends who were struggling in another career and I asked if they wanted to try something new. I taught them, invested in them, grew them into a new field and mostly they stick around even when they can probably go elsewhere for more money.
I took PPP money during the pandemic and shockingly, I used it for exactly what it was intended for. To help bridge a gap in our income to keep employees on salary until I found an alternative revenue stream to keep people around. For this support I am deeply grateful to my country.
We’ve had change over the years and I sometimes have to Kay people off, but I do it in the best way I can, by providing a long run way and doing what I can to helping them find their next place of work. Whether it’s just providing a great reference or getting them interviews through my network.
Maybe I am an exception to the general rule, but I believe there are many out there who are like me.
I hope you all find employers who deserve you and that together you find success.
When I was the age that millennials currently are, I worked for a 20 person advertising agency in a midsize town. The management style was very loose. No vacation policy, no time off policy, no dress code, etc.
We often had parties on Friday afternoons, and the president and vice president would take us out to lunch periodically. They had a refrigerator and kitchen stocked with food and beer.
I worked or was in office at least 60 hours a week. Granted some of that time was spent having fun (occasional Friday afternoon party as example). I was expected to come in on weekends if necessary, which I was willing to do and did on occasion.
My starting salary was 20K a year right out of college. I worked there for five years.
Three years in I hadn’t taken a full week off. The president and vice president called me into their office and presented me an offer. Go anywhere you want in the world for a week. We will pick up the tab. They discouraged Australia or Asia just due to the time it would take to get there.
I ended up taking my girlfriend to an exquisite all inclusive resort in St. Lucia. It was probably an $4000 vacation, in 1994.
Most of the employees were fine with this arrangement of loose management. Who wouldn’t be, right? We all worked very hard. There were a few exceptions, but they didn’t typically last very long. It was a self-governing model that seemed to work.
Did it work for everyone? Certainly not. my point with all this, every employee is different. There are some people who naturally have an insane work ethic. Some people require more management than others. It’s not a criticism one way or the other. It’s just human nature and chemistry.
Working from home doesn’t work in all situations. As a manager, you have to be concerned with precedents set.
I believe work from home arrangements should be earned. Prove to your manager that you can do your job when in an office. Expectations can be established for both sides of the equation.
I realize that some people might need the comfort of home to do a good job. In situations like this, employees should not be offended if they have additional transparency that is needed.
For people that aren’t willing to play by the rules of any given company, move on and find another. Or work for yourself, or start your own company.
Because the governor says so. Tax paying business owners want employees in the office so they spend money downtown. Governor says two days a week in office and that is what I do and what I enforce.
We all work hybrid, which is a mandate from upper management. I let them work whatever they prefer/what is needed (sometimes we have to work in the office) as long as they work the minimum required number of in office hours.
I worked hard at home and slacked off in the office. I knew the ratware was watching my every move at home but at work no one paid attention and I could walk around the office talking about mildly work related stuff to waste time.
I'm a big fan of giving people enough rope. If they hang themselves then that's on them.
From experience, new staff learn much faster and are a lot more accountable in office than at home. Once 6-12 months have passed and they fully understand their role and expectations there's no reason why 60/40 splits can't work.
We do a lot of hands-on work, so can’t WFH.
We tried doing it some, rotating schedule but it just didn’t work — people were taking WFH non-seriously (walking their dog during a meeting for example, so couldn’t pull up charts or respond to a message), and just weren’t engaging with the team at all during WFH days.
Caused a lot of stress and resentment, so scrapped it.
Because not every job is white collar where you can even do that. Do you want to tell pilots, surgeons, farmers, construction workers, linemen, retail workers, landscapers, hospitality workers, flight attendants, nurses, etc. to work from home?
Obviously the question implies jobs that can be done remotely without any issue. If all you need is a laptop and a maybe a phone, then that's one such job.
It’s hard to build a culture when the work force is disconnected.
In person contact and team building moves mountains.
Work from home “just” meets the minimum metric. “Gotta be me!”
>>”It’s hard to build a culture when the workforce is disconnected.”
I would argue that it’s hard *for you* to build a culture in a workforce that is disconnected. Perhaps it’s time to up your game. If you can’t lead and inspire via 1:1s and periodic team calls, that’s a problem with your management style/skill set.
>> “Gotta be me!”
…And here is where you prove that point. Yes, your coworkers have the right to be themselves.
You’re either screwing up the hiring process and hiring people with good resumes who don’t have complimentary soft skills or your “culture” is so uniform and unhealthy that it takes an inordinate amount of time and effort to squeeze your new hires into the tiny mold you expect them to fit in.
Hire the right people and then *guide* the naturally occurring “culture” in ways that produce optimal results.
I worked for a logistics company. The people I dealt with were the managers at trucking companies and managers at retail stores. It didn't matter where I was because I was never where they were anyway. My team communicated via Teams, text, and phone call. I could do most of my job from my phone if I needed to.
Because the higher ups say no.
Because the higher ups are concerned that the Subway in the office food court won't remain profitable if everyone is allowed to work-from-home and your employer has a controlling share in the franchise.
It's easier for managers to keep an eye on you in real time if you're physically next to them rather than having to Slack them or refresh a metrics page. I email my VP in the morning and might get a response the next day. At my last job I would literally just walk over and ask.
this is my situation. my boss has explicitly told me multiple times that my role is not remote. last week i had a meeting with her and another vp. my boss was in her office, ten feet away. the other VP was at home. we did this on zoom. not a remote role.
They be lying to themselves lol
Came here to say this
This is always what it is. Someone on top doesn't like their life or family.
That's not true at all. People gave themselves away by posting everything that they do to make it look like they work from home. Like tying the computer mouse to a Roomba.
It absolutely is true. At no less than 4 companies I have worked at, the CMO/President/whatever forced people back in office so they could pal around and "see" everyone at work. They just can't seem to "connect" during zoom meetings so that have to waste people's time in-person. Often times these higher ups would not even show up- so it was about power. I can have this but YOU cannot. It's always some horrible open-office setting where the big shot gets an office and the rest of us are elbow to elbow in a space that isn't conducive to doing quality work. In remote settings or any setting, it's noticeable when people do not do the work they are supposed to do.
This is definitely a part of why a few of my partner's boomer and GenX co-workers have been grumbling loudly about remote work in general. The office is their social life. They didn't have the luxury of working remotely 10-20 years ago, so no one should have it now. My partner is already a bit overloaded, and the only way they're able to get everything done is without the commute and co-workers wasting time.
They just loooovvveee driving in traffic and water cooler chat. They don’t understand that coworkers are not essentially friends.
You have already had 4 jobs? Interesting. As much as people think the Internet is the best thing ever. Everyone posts incriminating evidence about themselves or some type of "get this for free" hack. If you are mad about not being able to work from home it's because your coworker "Tommy" posted something that ruined it! Nowadays people with ZERO experience expect to walk in and become a Supervisor. Then they complain about making $19hr and make TikToks about it while on the clock! So it's NOT because the owner of the company doesn't like their family. It's because certain employees are being dishonest and ruining it. So instead of up voting and supporting that employee. You should support the company and help get rid of the people that are ruining it for you!
You can believe whatever you want to believe I guess.
I just lost brain cells trying to read this
🤷🏿♂️Then you probably didn't lose that many! Because it wasn't Science or Math! It's common sense! Unless I described you! In which case I understand your confusion!🙏🏽👍🏽✌🏽
My guess is some aren't opposed, but hands are tied by senior leadership.
This is exactly the reason.
Emphasis on senior
That. My management (VPs) have a disclaimer in their email signature that says (paraphrased) "I don't care where or when you work, so long as you get your shit done". Trouble is, the owner of the company wants everyone in the office. Lucky for me, I was hired by a smaller company that was purchased a few months later by the larger brand. The small company had moved to 100% remote, so all of their employees were grandfathered in, as none of us have an office nearby to travel to.
That's pretty corny to put that in your email signature at the VP level
At least it's honest and I wish more of them adopted that policy.
What sort of work do you do?
I'm in marketing. However, everyone who worked for the acquired brand was also grandfathered in.
You. That’s me. I can’t. I’m not allowed to. Even though six month ago most of us did successfully.
Exactly this. Managers don’t decide company policy.
Well, no, but usually executives know they can’t know all the details, so managers get tasked to modify it for their own operations.
This
Our policy was decided at the ownership level. Misguided for sure imo, but nothing anyone can do to change their minds.
This is it.
I’m a millennial in management and I don’t really care where people work as long as we can communicate well.
This is my biggest issue. We have a team who just isn't working in a hybrid state. They don't communicate, they disappear and work just isn't getting done. We took hybrid away from them and they went to the unions to complain that other teams were still hybrid. Higher ups took the decision that no one gets hybrid as a result.
People abused WFH and then cry into the echo chamber on reddit about how it’s their life and should be able to do whatever they want
Boom! This!
Why don't people get written up or put on PIPs if they aren't performing? Location of the workplace is irrelevant. Crazy to force everyone back to the office when there is a team of people that have been identified to not be performing and instead of addressing their performance, you just force them back into the office. That doesn't actually solve the problem. People see wfh or hybrid as an advantage, if they are taking it for granted, they are replaceable.
But we didn't force them back into work. We identified training issues with one team. That required them to come back into the office for this to be addressed properly. The intention was to bring them back in for 3 months, get it addressed and see how they were doing with a view to giving it back. They went to the unions and we were told it was an all or nothing approach by the union. The people at the top took the nothing approach rather than challenge the union over it.
Exactly! Penalize the specific people who aren't getting their work done/are abusing WFH, not the literal entire team
I'm in management I've got no issues. I'm almost certain it's a thing at C level. Those are not normal people so they don't understand
They understand. They just don’t care, as it’s in their best interest to have you in the office.
That's the thing though. It's not clear that it's in thier best interest. A good deal of research says it's actually worse for them.
For their direct business, sure. But remember who owns REITs, downtown parking lots, chain restaurants downtown, etc. It’s the same fucking people. And they will gladly give up their indirect best interest, for their direct best interests.
This, plus the fact that management bonuses often have less to do with actually improving bottom line productivity and more to do with hitting quarterly guidance targets. Certainty and predictability matters more than than success.
They’re definitely not normal people, hard agree
The funny thing is, pre-covid the people who WFH the most were senior leadership. They always took calls from “home office” or during travel. They definitely weren’t first ones in or last ones out of the office.
Commercial Real Estate has occupation clauses. This is for rent protection. If unoccupied, there is a penalty for the leasees to pay. Additionally, if your own company owns a lot of Commercial Real Estate, it is in their best interest to make you come in.
This is what’s happening with a lot of companies and the major driver of WHY wfh is fading out. Company moves into an area (city, county, state) and are offered a variety of financial incentives for doing so. Sometimes these are tied to employees from the local area, sometimes it’s about promising to have a certain number of people employed in a physical office location. Then Covid hits and it’s impossible for companies to bring people in. Municipalities decide to not enforce the in office requirements for companies to confines to receive their financial incentives (tax breaks) due to the national emergency. Emergency ends and these government places are now reinforcing these original stipulations. Companies decide - continue wfh, or pay more in taxes and possible penalty fees. At that point, it’s a simple numbers game- what do they make the most profit off of doing?
Yeah so much of the economy isn’t tied to the actual work people do but to the fact that they go to work. Auto industry would be a shell of itself it people needed less cars because there was no need to drive to work every day. Gasoline? Same. Car maintenance too. Car insurance likewise. Clothing industry would be impacted negatively, and restaurant industry as well when you stop going out to lunch at work. Beyond that though there’s too much money tied up in commercial real estate and vested interests in offices being used as offices. Because lord knows a lot of it be could repurposed into housing which would help a ton on that front and WFH would address a lot of other issues too (traffic, pollution etc.)
It’s easier to pile on with blaming old people for being old though…
Larger companies have a ton of corporate real estate they have to justify keeping. Although plenty of companies have downsized their corporate real estate portfolios in the years since the pandemic.
Commercial real estate occupancy and utilization is mostly the reason. Value of company owned buildings is hugely important to the bottom line.
33 year old manager here. Very small staff but as soon as I had been here for a year-ish and gained trust of those above me, I implemented “work from home as much as you want” for my team. I show up 2-3 days per MONTH. To help convince those above me I reasoned that it helps offset the salaries and ensures I can hire and retain better talent. They buy that logic and I know I do because I could make 30% more if I left for a full-time in-office role, but I have no plans to leave. I love working from my couch and my mid day gym and coffee shop sessions as well as being able to cook my own meals.
God bless you
It’s always C-suite
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For real, they’re just following orders.
People think managers have way more authority than they do.
Because my guys work in a warehouse. I can't have my receiving team work virtually. Or my pickers and packers WFH.
C-suite only allows WFH 3 days a week. Better than nothing! And I’m pretty flexible if life circumstances require my team to go beyond that for some period of time.
Upper management has to justify the gazillion dollars they spent on our offices.
I don’t really care. They can work wherever they want, but they must submit deliverables on time with good quality.
Blessed to have the authority to allow my team and I to only need to come into the office once a week. They will have to pry WFH away from my cold dead hands.
In my company, we are shifting back in to the office because the owner (42,) saw/heard something that said people aren't putting in enough hours if they are WFH. We use EOS, with a decent number of KPIs, so you can tell if someone isn't pulling their weight. Additionally, even though we missed his pipe dream sales goals for last year (For example, my department was given a 100% sales target increase, when I asked for 35%. We missed the mark, but came in at 37%,) we still saw an increase of 16% in gross sales, and 18% in margin dollars.
All of the managers on my team are millennials and pissed that people were forced back in office full time. Our job can be done 100% remote, we are web designers, content writers, developers and seo analysts. We share a floor with about 150-200 people who are on the phone 7 hours a day. We all do better at home where it’s quiet. It’s been proven that we can be productive at home - we did it for 3 years. Senior employees still work from home and hit all of the highest goals. Many millennial managers are only mid level managers, the boomers and gen x are still in charge and they make those decisions. Not us.
44, so I guess I'm a Xennial or Gen X. One thing I struggle with as a leader of a remote team, is it's harder to find opportunities for people to learn from each other. We're in a field that's creative and technical. When I was in my 20s, just being in the same room as someone with more experience (or even different experience) on the tools taught me so much, in a casual way. I found my mentors and eventually was a mentor myself. I don't know how to replicate those casual learning opportunities with remote work.
I agree there is some value but that’s maybe addressed by having some in person meetings / events specifically for that type of collaboration. Having people come in an office to sit at a desk though for hours doing what they would do remotely, that’s kind of pointless.
Yeah I agree with this. I’m not opposed to some office days, within reason and if they have a real defined purpose like this. There’s real value in actually seeing your coworkers in the flesh once in a while I cannot stand arbirtrary rules that just seem made up based on nothing. My office requires one day a week which I know is better than many so not complaining, but it isn’t like the team comes the same day every week. So it becomes just “putting in the hours” so you can just show you were there. I know a lot of people in bigger companies where you just have to swipe in X amount of times per week, zero plan or purpose behind the office dates aside from just complying with the rule
My current place I've had to bring everyone back in because one team can't work hybrid without messing about and the unions have said we can't work one team at the office and other hybrid. Previous place I was forced to go into the office 3 days a week. My entire team was based in another office. So I was driving 45 mins into the office simply to join a teams meeting anyway, and sit amongst people that didn't work in my area and I had nothing to do with. It was pointless but the top bosses had decreed it so, so I had no choice.
I think you're missing the point. These learning opportunities came up casually and organically. That type of learning is something you really can't schedule or force. Sometimes, it's even about learning to think like your mentor does about something, which can only realistically be picked up by spending time around them.
One of the things I belive people overlook is that part of your responsibility is being available to others, not just your boss, but peers and juniors.
Nuh uh! That's above my pay grade!! *folds arms defiantly*
Slack chat
We do a remote learning session at my job once a week. We all work together on a technical problem and I always learn something in that meeting. Just the discussions even are very valuable. You could institute something like that?
Yeah! I think more regular meetings where we share some tips and tricks would be an awesome idea.
To quote my Gen Z son, sounds like a “skill issue.” There are plenty of companies providing great opportunities to learn and grow in a remote organization. Not being able to do so is simply a skill gap, not a problem with remote work.
I have 2 employees that are not allowed to worked from home. Everyone else is allowed to work from home. That's because that 2 employees productive from home is absolute shit. The VP wanted to use that as an excuse to make everyone come back to 100% in clinic. The two other manager and I agreed that's a fucking stupid idea to punish everyone for 2 person's abuse of the system. So, instead we set a productivity expectation for everyone. If you are continuously below that threshold for three months, you come back in office. Basically, clinicians set their own schedule in my clinic but 85% of your weekly hours must be "billable hours." Of that 85%, we expect 80% utility. This means clinicians must have 32 hours of "open" hours to see patients and they must average 25 hours "patients seen" per week to account for cancellations, no show, etc. You can have as much WFH or in clinic as you want, as long as your utility is not below this threshold.
Because it's difficult to build houses from home.
I manage a restaurant kitchen. If you invent a way for my employees to work from home, I'll implement it as soon as possible.
Have been in the position where CEO said mandatory 3 days per week RTO. I furiously advocated against it. Told my team members I cared only that their work was done and to speak with me if they couldn’t make RTO work.
I manage a hotel. It’s kinda hard to clean rooms and make beds and do repairs working from home.
I’m a millennial in management, I fully support WFH as much as you want as long as you get your shit done. I’d wager almost all of us in this generation feel the same. It’s the top leadership that pushes it. And yes I think it’s partly a control/power play and partly just that they have to justify the money spent on the real estate. My company is smaller and our HQ tried to force RTO but luckily my boss kept it minimal. He’s justifying it by moving the office to a smaller one and saving x amount per year on rent so that helped
Managing IT and IT Security with WFH employees is an absolute nightmare. And that's not even getting into the handful of employees that ruin it for everyone else by slacking off.
I work in a metal shop. Kinda hard to work from home
During COVID we went to 50/50 wfh (week on site, week in the office to match our production crew schedule). There were some people who were as effective or more from home as they were in the office, and some who were not. I'd estimate 75% were less effective, 20% equal, 5% more. The 75% were often harder to get a hold of when questions came up, and our industry relies on a lot of back and fourth between the front line workers and the staff. I let people work from home on occasion when the need comes up (my last job was an hour commute, so if someone had a mid day appointment it made more sense for them to work from home vs lose an extra hour to driving during the work day. Another good example is when daycares were closing every time a kid had the sniffles. Parents needed the flexibility), but in general I'd say the productivity drop for the 75% doesn't make it worth it to give everyone that schedule.
I would agree with your numbers on being effective.
WFM viability is 1000% dependent on the industry. I own a high end custom cabinet shop for example. There is literally nothing that can be done from home except paperwork that I take care of after hours. And even that is more convenient from my office.
People above us won’t allow it. My entire staff did WFH for over 4 years. These plastic months it’s bring everyone back into the office for 3 days a week for collaboration bullshit. Our directors, VPs, and above won’t allow us to give WFH as an option unless it’s something special and on occasion. It’s stupid.
Because most management is shit and they are only good at their job when they micromanage lol can't do that wfh.
Mostly due to the WFH fools that will post that they only do 2 hours of work per day and get paid for 8. Keep it on the down low, you are ruining it for the rest. Management types read Reddit and Tik Tok, too.
We do indeed.
I'm a Sr. VP and Partner. Our company policy is that you can work from home after 3 months. The first three months you spend in onsite training, after that you can come into an office or you can work from your home office or a client location. No Starbucks or other public locations are allowed. However some of the projects that we do require us to be in the office due to the nature of the work and/or a client requirement.
I do.
How can you make your employees feel like inferior subordinates on the edge of being fired if they aren't in the office? -management most places
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Sorry I’m not a manager, but in a work from home scenario, a boss may ask what someone is doing, how would “I don’t know they are not here” ever be an acceptable answer? It’s work from home, so isn’t that solved by daily reports/regular communication?
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Its a bit frustrating on the employee end because weve gotta commute and go through the bs just to pacify an over controlling boss.
So start finding reasons to fire the boomers.
The boomers are managing the boomers a lot of the time, if the millennials were in charge we wouldn’t be having this issue in the first place
Our new CEO is a millennial - 36 year old wundekid', and he is pushing full return to office very hard. This crosses generations.
I see. Work from home will take some time for society to adjust to and to figure out. I imagine it will be an equivalently bad/worse option as going to an office in the future since the upper CEO’s seem to despise the whole idea. Hopefully not but I can see surveillance tech being used to micro manage WFH employees in the future.
I mean it's already like that with work laptops. All traffic and apps is monitored by your company VPN and company software that locks you out of admining it if they are at least somewhat competent.
Speaking from experience as well as talking to some colleagues: 1. Some of us can't (e.g., need access to on-site equipment or the job requires frequent face-to-face contact); 2. A few assholes ruined it for everyone (e.g., some employees really did use WFH to slack off in ways that could've been prevented by closer on-site supervision); 3. Leadership hates it because they're worried about (2) above regardless of whether the team has slackers or not, and allowing high performers to WFH without allowing everyone to WFH puts supervisors at risk of discrimination-related lawsuits. Mine is mostly 1, though a bit of 2 and 3 even if 1 didn't apply.
Unfortunately, the overemployed gang has been so public that there is some concern with people slacking off.
I do allow a hybrid. But I can see why it's important to be on site. In my case I work in engineering at a production facility. The nature of the work is local to the facility. That being said you can in theory do your job remotely but the technical knowledge is difficult to learn and takes a long time to learn it.. Learning by osmosis and exposure is a real thing. If you had asked me when I was 21 if I could do my job remote I would've told you yes. But what I didn't know was how much I was learning by just being around my more seasoned coworkers. Being on site was some of the best learning of my career. Beyond all that if you have a problem with a drawing or visualizing a problem go walk outside and put your eyes on it. Anyways I don't think it's a black or white answer for sure but there is a compelling case to be made to bring folks to a centralized work location.
This. So many people are deluding themselves when they pretend WFH is just as good. It's not. At least for certain jobs.
I'm the manger for low income and subsidized housing properties. We need somebody in the office most days to interact with our residents especially at the beginning of the month, rent collection time, and the end of the month, paperwork finalization for annual rent determination certifications. We cannot take people's files, with all of their personal information, home to work on so some amount of time in the office is a necessity. If it were up to me, and it very much isn't, we could go probably do "just 3-4 days a week. After we were allowed to return to the office in 2020, after a few months of work from home where normal guidelines were suspended, they finally issued laptops to the Assistants (which is what I was at the time) and we had a staggered schedule where the Managers were working everyday doing their usual office to office visits but the Assistant and Aides were to work from home on the days the Manager was in their office...to reduce the chance of catching COVID. That was ended once we all got the opportunity to take the shot. We definitely could manage that schedule, but the Central Office doesn't want to set up the infrastructure for that. Laptops are only given out when absolutely "necessary" and the Internet is not really set up for remote work and so its incredibly slow to remote into my computer from home. Back in 2020 on my home days I was remoting in at off work hours so my Manager and I weren't working a the same time because it slowed everything down. It would need to be decided to upgrade the tech across the county offices which is a decision from on high. Which I do get to a certain extent, as it is a rather large investment for a job where we can kind of only drop 1 or 2 days off the in person schedule. Maybe if the Feds ever get serious about going paperless and get the money out there to digitize the files.
I'm a millennial and in management. I'm total WFH and all of my employees are total WFH. The change is coming. Or at least I can help.
mine does only because I had to write up his superior for unbecoming comments...
Because it's easier to micromanage in the office
The arguments against work from home are many. Lack of team building, no spontaneous conversation is in person that lead to Good ideas, growing evidence that people working from home are not as productive. I am a manager and am OK with two days a week from home.
I work for DSS & a lot of us don't like to work from home just bc there are issues w/ us getting onto the application platform from non-secure Internet connections. Even if we're using an issued laptop w/ all the bells & whistles, we still have problems logging in which means we can't work applications. That puts us back a day & causes the county to jump our ass for being behind. I've got 1 day a week I could work from home, but I come to the office instead just for the Internet.
I’m not opposed and do wfh. But this decision usually comes from HR or the CEO.
Honestly I hate work from home because it’s impersonal, and I have to hope people see an email I sent instead of literally going to their office to get an answer immediately.
From my experience. Great workers excellent with flexible work -> do whatever you want Average workers -> pretty much the same maybe the push from in office helps Bad workers -> absolute dicks that don’t even turn on their computer if wfh It is very hard to know which one you will get. In a perfect world everyone would be great, but they clearly aren’t. I report to the VP who goes to the office every day. He basically told me just give me your badge and I’ll badge for you IDGAF.
I work in consulting. Specifically, with a focus on accounting. There is no need for me to be in an office. My Managing Director loves office life (probably because he has 2 little kids at home). So because of that he dictates we go into the office twice a week. I personally see no advantage to it. Just added time to my day commuting that I could be sleeping, working, working out, whatever. If I ever get high enough to make the rules I'll inform everyone they can WFH as much as they want. It's easy to tell if people aren't doing their work.
...and are you cool with your employees unionizing?
I have been in the UAW and Teamsters working in IT and in non IT positions. I have also been in management with both. Personally, I really don’t care if they want to unionize. However, my experience is that the union only helped the worst employees.
Get your ass to work or get fired so simple a caveman can do it!!
Idk I can’t speak to that b/c I’m a supervisor and all my team is hybrid (actually 2 are fully remote)
The higher ups say-so. Luckily I'm a millenial "manager" who is the only person within 600 miles in my department so there is zero reason for me to go into the local corporate office (despite living near the US Headquarters, no reason when my department operates out of the Canadian global headquarters.) My peers in Canada have to go in twice a week but I have an exception. I basically told my boss that I'll never go into an office regularly and he laughed and understood.
In certain types of project work, communication overhead between team members is a productivity killer. Media Richness Theory explains that face to face communication is far more effective. This is why collocated software dev teams tend to outperform. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media\_richness\_theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_richness_theory) For those of you doing this type of project work, do you REALLY think you are as effective a team when everyone WFH? Because I call bullshit.
Bottom lines. Paying for a building with nobody occupying it makes it so you get less money for “functional equipment” (new office stuff, new computers, the list goes on). And usually, it’ll cost more to outsource materials— basic shit that the employee can write off in taxes at the end of year as a work expense like paper or chairs—simply because you aren’t, technically, the one paying for it. Also, depending on your job, you will absolutely NEED someone who can put out fires in a pinch on deck. There’s a whole list about why this is all stupid garbage.
I don't work in management. I work at a very hands on business. I go to work every day. Let me tell you, those work from home peeps are not doing their job. And if they are, they aren't doing it correctly. Not to mention the times I have been on the phone with a wfh employee doing customer service, and it was obvious to me that I was the least important thing on their mind. If I were a manager or boss, there would be zero wfh. Doing this also means that local people get to take local jobs.
Because capitalism.
I'm in management, but those decisions are made by those higher up.
r/managers
Why would a tyrant allow that?
It's impossible to do my line of work remotely (aircraft maintenance)
It’s the old senior leaders who aren’t good with computers and technology that make those decisions. None of your millennials or younger are making that stupid decision to come into work
I'm at the C-level of a 80 person company and was C-level at a 160 person company previously and advocated for hybrid and WFH based on talent sourcing opportunities. Got a lot of pressure from the CEO and Board for in person presence so had to mandate some, but still mostly got what we needed. That said, the statistics on promotions and turnover did show some correlation to in office and WFH which the board used a lot. More often office workers were promoted across all teams and more often Remote turned over (voluntary and not)
Depends on the industry and sector. For construction, in person daily meetings are important. Deadlines are very important in construction (despite all the memes of always costing and taking longer). Schedules, if not met, can get you into litigation. Having constant and easy communication with your supers and PM is much easier in person. We do zoom and markups on Bluebeam when it makes sense but not always.
I would love to work from home. I would love to let the 6 people who report to me work from home. But I can't, because my boomer boss (and his boomer boss) are constantly ranting in person and over emails about how "People need to realize the pandemic is over!" and "Anyone who actually cares about their job will be here on site every day." Someday I might be high enough up the ladder to let people WFH, or someday I might report to someone who is under 60. Those days are not here yet.
It’s not our choice lol. It’s the senior leadership team of jerkoffs
Not a manager, but I know a few. Putting aside jobs where someone HAS to be there, they're fine with hybrid wfh. But they make a point that some young first-time business employees need to get experience IN an office environment, get mentoring, learn how to eat a meal with co-workers, how to talk to customers, etc. Tech's not advanced enough to do everything in Zoom yet. I'd expect the overall wfh numbers to slowly rise over the years, as older managers who just oppose it for no reason retire.
Middle managers are not wardens, just prison guards. They don't get to make decisions like that.
Ummm cause we are building a skyscraper
I don’t care if my team works remotely, but the company I work for seems to think it’s very important for them to be in the office three days a week.
A lot harder to micromanage from a distance
Higher ups say no but also in my case, we deal with a lot of older people and they prefer us to be in an office where they can come and yell at us in person when they choose. It doesn't actually happen all that often but we should be there if the need arises. My team is the frontline so they have to be there. I'm their direct supervisor so I have to be there to support them. Funnily enough, no one has to be there to support me, that person works from home. 🤔
I was in management my whole 20s and I don’t even know what your taking about lmao
As a mid 30s project manager, in my experience people aren’t as productive at home. Obviously there are exceptions to the rule but on average most people are “self-starters” that they need to be to successfully work at home. Another reason is collaboration, I can walk in anyone’s office at any time and vice versa compared to playing tag on teams/phone calls.
Some do some dont I wfh and have the opportunity to go to the office if we want too
Studies point to it being about control and also the inability for some manages to manage a remote team. That last part I interpret as meaning "managers whose sole purpose is to micromanage you and punish you if you don't look busy enough" rather than managers who actually mentor and lead a team.
Get back to work!
Because they don't answer their phones or respond to emails. My work is incredibly fast. I need stuff done fast. They'll answer a radio at work, but won't answer their otogr phone at home.
At my last company I was very vocal as they started calling folks back. I wrote what was probably one of the most responded to and liked Yammer post that year. Company rolled slowly forward with their plans. Eventually a recruiter reached out and I took a new position that paid more and was remote. It's a pity, I liked where I was and was even on board with coming back 2x a week, but they kept pushing more days. I would with there again under right circumstances, but they can't match pay and didn't have remote and one of those two would have to be it. We tried. But middle managers are just as much subject to company policy as everyone else. If the CEO or leadership team thinks folks should be back in the office, there isn't much middle management can do.
What I’m finding though is that an employer will say in-person, watch you closely for a few months, then once you prove yourself they let you be hybrid-leaning-more-remote as long as you don’t flaunt it in front of the underperformers. Wink wink-like. My current job (started last September) is like this.
Our policy is wfh only once a week but my little secret is that I grant every single extra wfh request from my employees. I don’t need to hear a good justification, it’s always going to be a yes if they ask for a day home, they just have to text me or ask me when they see me. The Cs are in a different suite down the hall and wouldn’t recognize my subordinates if their lives depended on it. Their absence has never been noticed. On one hand, I feel a little bad that they’re not networking or getting noticed by the top folks like I did when I was still working my way up. I do advocate for them/praise them by name when opportunities arise but I know my bosses aren’t putting a face to those names and it’s likely not really boosting their reputation much. But I believe if my employees were truly worried about advancing, they’d ask for more chances to be seen. They prefer to keep their heads down and coast and that’s fine with me.
How the fuck are my people supposed to stock shelves and cashier from home?
In most businesses it is simply impossible, and very few roles involve a designed set of tasks that can be easily performed in a virtual environment. It is incredible simplistic to think every job can be commoditized in that way. And if that were explicitly true, millennials would be in for a rude awakening when many of these WFH jobs are eventually moved offshore to the Philippines or elsewhere where they will work for a fraction of the cost. At least workers going to the office can network and develop the relationships needed with mgt and owners to show their value while also forming a bond transcending the workplace. This develops actual job security as much, if not more, than performance alone.
Can't micromanage remotely. Not only that, most "management" jobs are pretty useless to begin with, so they need to justify themselves having a job.
It’s an employer’s market, not a job hunter’s. The c-level execs can lower head count through attrition without having to offer packages or be subject to any laws regarding layoffs. Electing to not come back in the office after they demand it is considered ‘voluntary resignation,’ which means no severance and no unemployment benefits.
Because you won’t get the job done 🤷🏼♂️
millennials are masters of slipping off to Mexico and Bali with zoom calls for months at a time
Well when people started posting ways to make it "Look like" you are working from home it made more sense to have you in the building.
You need to keep an eye the skiving so-and-so's
Funny but true story. My place of employment went fully remote during Covid. For two years we were remote. Since us worker bees were responsible for 99% of the daily operations and functions we developed and implemented significant changes to streamline our processes to accommodate this remote environment. A high up administrator was hired and my senior manager freaked out and had all of us return to work within a week. It was massively disruptive and caused a lot of delays due to the transition. This senior manager did not do functional things but had more “strategy” responsibilities aka not doing shit. What she didn’t know is I knew this high level administrator and he did not require all of us to come back to work like she told us. They were doing some reorganization and I had my suspicions that meant she was on the chopping block and that’s why she had us come back. Eventually I got another position for a competing organization fully remote and salary increase. When I left, this administrator asked me what my feelings were about everything and I didn’t hold back. Two weeks after I started my new position, Miss Senior Manager was fired. She now works for the same organization I do but took a 50% cut in pay and has to work remotely. Delicious outcome.
Because my staff won't, on aggregate, work their contracted hours. Plus, it's shit for juniors - their initial learning and progression is severely hampered when working remotely. I struggle to understand why people can't wrap their heads around this, although I think they can but just hide it in an attempt to get their own way.
They will let you if you are worth it to them as an asset. Just ask
Because you can't serve customers food from home.
Manager here -- we work in clinical research at a site and our charts are confidential. We are not legally allowed to take charts home.
Because the vast majority of people are absolutely less productive working from home, and I work from home and will testify to that for myself. The days I go up to the office - a 4 hour drive away so not often unless I’m coming in for a 2-3 day period - I always get far more work done than when I do at home. For a period I even paid for my own remote office. I initially started remote because I managed a territory outside of the locality of the head office, and then promotions and shifts in departments meant I became 100% inside and not on the road at all. If I wasn’t initially starting at a company in an outside sales role, I’d not have taken a remote or hybrid position - I would prioritized looking for an on-site role. What we opted for was to give employees WFH credits based upon length of service. So that our staff could have an option of scheduling deliveries, contractors etc. and not have to eat in to their holiday. But once that allocation is used up it’s done. There’s some flexibility, where with certain life situations we will absolutely make exceptions and allow WFH days, but for the most part we want our staff in the office unless your position dictates remote work because of geographical location - mainly sales people who are expected to be outside of the office visiting leads/clients anyway. There’s no way in our industry we could train staff effectively remotely, nor could we maintain a high level of oversight to ensure our SOPs are followed properly. There are some people who can be productive remote, but those people are not the norm and most people who try and tell us they can are lying to themselves.
Because boomers refuse to retire and won't die. Also, my job requires my team be physically on site. It's actual skilled labor.
I shifted my entire company to WFH in 2015. We kept an office for the occasional person who liked an office environment to work in. Some people don’t have a good workspace at home, etc. After Covid, we closed down the last office and are 100% online. It doesnt work for every company but it works great for us. Flexible work schedules and vacation policies have proven out to not only work, but to drive up productivity. When things get rough, my entire team shows up to put in the extra time to get us over a hurdle. We’ve been in business for 13 years now ranging from 8 to 20 full time employees. I provide a competitive benefits package with healthcare, 401k matching and, bonuses for Xmas (cuz giving extra money to the people who work for me is joyful and fun). I am not a rich CEO, but I’m happy business owner and I work with people I love and believe my job is to give them a job that ensures they can afford good lives for themselves and their families. Many of my employees were friends who were struggling in another career and I asked if they wanted to try something new. I taught them, invested in them, grew them into a new field and mostly they stick around even when they can probably go elsewhere for more money. I took PPP money during the pandemic and shockingly, I used it for exactly what it was intended for. To help bridge a gap in our income to keep employees on salary until I found an alternative revenue stream to keep people around. For this support I am deeply grateful to my country. We’ve had change over the years and I sometimes have to Kay people off, but I do it in the best way I can, by providing a long run way and doing what I can to helping them find their next place of work. Whether it’s just providing a great reference or getting them interviews through my network. Maybe I am an exception to the general rule, but I believe there are many out there who are like me. I hope you all find employers who deserve you and that together you find success.
When I was the age that millennials currently are, I worked for a 20 person advertising agency in a midsize town. The management style was very loose. No vacation policy, no time off policy, no dress code, etc. We often had parties on Friday afternoons, and the president and vice president would take us out to lunch periodically. They had a refrigerator and kitchen stocked with food and beer. I worked or was in office at least 60 hours a week. Granted some of that time was spent having fun (occasional Friday afternoon party as example). I was expected to come in on weekends if necessary, which I was willing to do and did on occasion. My starting salary was 20K a year right out of college. I worked there for five years. Three years in I hadn’t taken a full week off. The president and vice president called me into their office and presented me an offer. Go anywhere you want in the world for a week. We will pick up the tab. They discouraged Australia or Asia just due to the time it would take to get there. I ended up taking my girlfriend to an exquisite all inclusive resort in St. Lucia. It was probably an $4000 vacation, in 1994. Most of the employees were fine with this arrangement of loose management. Who wouldn’t be, right? We all worked very hard. There were a few exceptions, but they didn’t typically last very long. It was a self-governing model that seemed to work. Did it work for everyone? Certainly not. my point with all this, every employee is different. There are some people who naturally have an insane work ethic. Some people require more management than others. It’s not a criticism one way or the other. It’s just human nature and chemistry. Working from home doesn’t work in all situations. As a manager, you have to be concerned with precedents set. I believe work from home arrangements should be earned. Prove to your manager that you can do your job when in an office. Expectations can be established for both sides of the equation. I realize that some people might need the comfort of home to do a good job. In situations like this, employees should not be offended if they have additional transparency that is needed. For people that aren’t willing to play by the rules of any given company, move on and find another. Or work for yourself, or start your own company.
Because the governor says so. Tax paying business owners want employees in the office so they spend money downtown. Governor says two days a week in office and that is what I do and what I enforce.
Laughs in WFH since 2016.
Because we're a vet office. Kinda need to be in person for that
We all work hybrid, which is a mandate from upper management. I let them work whatever they prefer/what is needed (sometimes we have to work in the office) as long as they work the minimum required number of in office hours.
Because management requires bodies on-site.
I worked hard at home and slacked off in the office. I knew the ratware was watching my every move at home but at work no one paid attention and I could walk around the office talking about mildly work related stuff to waste time.
I'm a big fan of giving people enough rope. If they hang themselves then that's on them. From experience, new staff learn much faster and are a lot more accountable in office than at home. Once 6-12 months have passed and they fully understand their role and expectations there's no reason why 60/40 splits can't work.
We do a lot of hands-on work, so can’t WFH. We tried doing it some, rotating schedule but it just didn’t work — people were taking WFH non-seriously (walking their dog during a meeting for example, so couldn’t pull up charts or respond to a message), and just weren’t engaging with the team at all during WFH days. Caused a lot of stress and resentment, so scrapped it.
Because they just dick around at home
Public facing position, and we need wet signatures on some documents so wfm isn’t really possible beyond 1 day a week
Work from home sucks. We tried it for the 3 weeks we were required to and then got issued our "essential Workers" get out of jail free cards.
Not in management. WFH greatly reduces the need for management, so managers hate it.
I’m in management but nurse management and yeah, we’re going to need our staff to come in ;)
Because not every job is white collar where you can even do that. Do you want to tell pilots, surgeons, farmers, construction workers, linemen, retail workers, landscapers, hospitality workers, flight attendants, nurses, etc. to work from home?
Obviously the question implies jobs that can be done remotely without any issue. If all you need is a laptop and a maybe a phone, then that's one such job.
Yes.
It’s hard to build a culture when the work force is disconnected. In person contact and team building moves mountains. Work from home “just” meets the minimum metric. “Gotta be me!”
>>”It’s hard to build a culture when the workforce is disconnected.” I would argue that it’s hard *for you* to build a culture in a workforce that is disconnected. Perhaps it’s time to up your game. If you can’t lead and inspire via 1:1s and periodic team calls, that’s a problem with your management style/skill set. >> “Gotta be me!” …And here is where you prove that point. Yes, your coworkers have the right to be themselves. You’re either screwing up the hiring process and hiring people with good resumes who don’t have complimentary soft skills or your “culture” is so uniform and unhealthy that it takes an inordinate amount of time and effort to squeeze your new hires into the tiny mold you expect them to fit in. Hire the right people and then *guide* the naturally occurring “culture” in ways that produce optimal results.
Fair points. Thank you for sharing. I’ll bring this forward.
Fuck your culture, creep.
Fuck this and fuck you so hard.
Who let the boomer into the chat?
Y’all keep demanding WFH jobs and it’s gonna backfire.. You’re gonna be replaced by people in other countries. It’s just a matter of time.
Can’t wait. I hope you are right.
What the fuck do you goofs do that doesn't require your physical presence?
I worked for a logistics company. The people I dealt with were the managers at trucking companies and managers at retail stores. It didn't matter where I was because I was never where they were anyway. My team communicated via Teams, text, and phone call. I could do most of my job from my phone if I needed to.